from cherry trees
planted decades ago
the sweetest fruit
Archive for June, 2023
One at the Party with Longtime Friends
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, time on June 11, 2023| 7 Comments »
Sitting with Rachel in the Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, found, friendship, lost, rachel on June 11, 2023| 7 Comments »
The secret, she says, is to put yourself
in the mindset of the thing that is lost.
And so it is she finds her lover’s shoes,
her misplaced keys, the coin I thought
was missing. It’s her superpower,
she says. I just think to myself,
if I were a key, where would I be?
For years, I have felt this—
how she imagines her way inside me,
enters me like sunshine inside water,
shining until, I, too, feel found.
In Julie & Carla’s Living Room
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged games, laughter, music, wedding on June 10, 2023| 4 Comments »
The night before they renew their vows,
Julie and Carla sit in matching chairs,
kazoos in hand, playing “Come On, Eileen”
and greatest hits from Fleetwood Mac.
Around them, we play our own kazoos—
“Who Let the Dogs Out” and “Lady Marmalade.”
The night doesn’t care if we can’t
guess each other’s songs.
It cares nothing for wrong or right.
it cares only that we laugh,
that we meet each other
with the hum of warmth, with joy,
that we honor what happens
when two people grow their love
and share it with the world.
For an hour, we hang on each other’s notes.
Long after, we hang on the laughter.
How Sweet It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, community, goodness, nature, wildflower on June 9, 2023| 9 Comments »
They’re small, the flowers
of mountain mahogany—
little white and red trumpets
with barely a scent, but
today, on a trail lined
with millions of tiny blossoms,
the air was hung with sweet perfume
and I breathed deeper,
as if with each pull
I could bring beauty into my lungs.
When I lose faith
that my smallest actions
make a difference,
let me remember myself as one of millions,
remember the wonder of walking today
through the bushes in bloom.
Hours later the scent is long gone,
but I can’t unknow
how sweet it is.
Riparian Soul
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, generosity, river, service, work on June 7, 2023| 11 Comments »
for Kathy Jepson who lives and works in the San Miguel River Canyon
Some people are rivers—
always moving, always in flow.
Wherever they are,
life flourishes. They nourish,
they support, they sustain,
and they change the shape
of the landscape—
carving new paths around obstacles,
softening what is sharp.
Some people are rivers—
the lifeblood of a valley.
Forceful at times,
at other times gentle,
but constant, so constant
you could take them for granted—
like a woman with a headset
and a clipboard,
a pencil tucked in her hair
standing behind a curtain
so others can shine.
Some people are rivers.
You know who they are
because all around them
everything is growing,
everything they touch.
And you realize you can’t imagine
being without them—
everywhere you look,
you see how quietly,
how powerfully
they have transformed the world.
Surprise Treasure
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, love, mother, perspective, trash, treasure on June 7, 2023| 8 Comments »
There was that year
when my mother
turned used ribbons,
thin paper plates
and gold-painted plastic grapes
into a celebration.
Our small family sat
around an old oak table
and made hats
from the strange collection.
How festive it was,
so much more than enough.
Fifty years later
I remember the joy
when we tied those plates
onto our heads.
They were scraps, trash—
the miraculous kind
that needs only love
to make it shine—
scraps like this day, like words,
like ribbons of memory.
One Missing You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, love, missing on June 6, 2023| 2 Comments »
in the chamber of the heart
lighting a golden candle
offering you a chair
In Search
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, garden, grief on June 5, 2023| 10 Comments »
We must go in search of enchantment.
René Magritte, “Surrealism in the Sunshine”
And so, my heart,
raw and torn,
went to the garden
and bid its hands
to dig in the soil
and plant zinnias,
lemon thyme, basil,
and osteopermum.
And what hurt still hurt—
but an hour later,
the heart emerged
raw and torn and
grateful for beauty.
All day, it remembered
the orange and purple petals,
the green scent of thyme,
the zinnias, their blossoms
so exuberant, the centers
surrounded by stars.
Before the Wings Appear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, dreams, mother, sleep, touch, vulnerability on June 3, 2023| 5 Comments »
for my daughter
“Snuggle,” she said,
a two-syllable passport
to another world—
the world in which
she is more dream
than mask, more breath
than task, her softness
inviting my softness,
and I slipped beside
her dream-scented body
and curled myself
into her shape,
one arm draped
across her weight,
and matched my inhale
to her inhale, matched
my every exhale to hers
and listened as once again
sleep took her,
and she was not curious,
not smart, not funny,
not brave, but so deeply
herself, and how could I not
fall deeper in love,
a pilgrim in this realm
of sweet defenselessness,
the silken luff of our breaths
weaving around us
like a cocoon.
A Letter to the Graduates
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged graduation, grief, joy, loss, paradox, suicide on June 2, 2023| 12 Comments »
Delivered at the Telluride High School Graduation, June 2, 2023 I don’t know how to make sense of the story of how Finn is here, although he is not. How he lives in the deep soil of memory— still running with you through the playground your bodies bright streaks of joy, cartwheeling across the green valley floor and tap dancing on this stage, traveling with you to Mesa Verde and Ecuador and building computers and graphing equations and writing code, swinging golf clubs and debating politics and dressing as a skyscraper in the Halloween parade. Laughing in the hall and crying in his room. I don’t know how it is we can crumple with grief and still rise with hope, love, celebration. And yet we do. At the same time he is missed, you, friends, grow more fully into yourselves each one of you a sapling reaching not only toward light but also reaching with your roots through the dark, the necessary dark that anchors us, keeps us rooted in what’s real. I don’t know how it is we come to know our own lives better because he took his, but we do. We learn to trust that despite a great wound, we can thrive, the way a tree grows around a gash, trunk still strong, though a scar remains, leaves still unfurling to gather sun. I don’t know how we speak of sadness and joy in the same breath, but we do. Joy in coming together. Joy in knowing heartbreak invites us to become more spacious, more kind. Joy in forging new dreams. Joy in remembering the world as it was and at the same time growing so bravely, so beautifully into the world that is. |